pond with boulders and trees at Samaritan Lebanon Health Sciences Campus

Samaritan Lebanon Health Sciences Campus + Boulder Falls Inn

A healing garden supporting a rural community's revitalization.

Location: Lebanon, Oregon
Dates: 2013 – 2015
Size: 1 acre

The third garden Kurisu has designed and built for Samaritan Healthcare in Lebanon, Oregon, this publicly-accessible Japanese-style stroll garden lies at the heart of Samaritan's Health Sciences Campus, also home to the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific North-West.

pond and rocks with background building at Samaritan Lebanon Health Sciences Campus

Flanked by the new Boulder Falls Inn and convention center, the garden includes an expansive pond, pathways, waterfall, stream and authentically crafted Japanese gazebo and bridges.

pond with boulders and trees in background at Samaritan Lebanon Health Sciences Campus

Specimen 40-50 year-old trees from Kurisu’s own nursery bring maturity and structure to the open space which serves as a peaceful, therapeutic destination for visitors and the community as a whole.

garden path and gate at Samaritan Lebanon Health Sciences campus

This garden and the development of Samaritan Health Sciences Campus were galvanized by the success of the Healing Garden at the adjacent Lebanon Community Hospital to effectively impact the culture of an entire community that had been experiencing slow economic decline.

gate at Samaritan Lebanon Health Sciences Campus

Together they play important roles in the awakening and revitalization of this small, rural town.

In his book "Visionary Landscapes" (2017), Kendall Brown writes about the phenomenon:

“Impressed with the physical and economic environment, administrators at the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California decided to build their new osteopathic medical school across from Samaritan [Lebanon Community Hospital]. This construction was followed by the Veterans’ Administration erecting a 154-bed residence and, in 2014, Samaritan creating a hotel and conference facility centering on a 1-acre waterfall-fed pond garden lavishly installed after a 2.5-million-dollar campaign. The new garden, featuring a series of dramatic waterfalls feeding a tranquil pond, is traversed by a winding path, viewed from pavilions and spied from the adjacent Boulder Falls Inn. Retail and residential projects are being added in dramatic testimony to the power of sensitively-made Japanese-style gardens to assuage the infirm, engage the medical professionals, inspire investors and thereby heal a community.”

To learn more about this project's location, visit the Boulder Falls Inn website.

I see it as a community healing environment. It's free to the public and people and come in and enjoy it and it's very unique for a timber community to have something like this.

Bill Rauch, Lebanon Community Leader, Samaritan Lebanon Health Sciences Campus + Boulder Falls Inn

Healing Gardens

Our Japanese-style healing gardens are designed with an intention for restoration on the deepest levels. We incorporate the ancient philosophies and techniques of Japanese garden design to reawaken the connection between people and nature – between ourselves and the larger, timeless cycles of change and regeneration.